Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Day 62--Just Another Day in Paradise
Variable weather!!
July 22--cold, windy with a few snow showers--no big deal--
July 25--wind so strong it picks up the gravel like shotgun pellets
July 27--Beautiful sunny day, temps in the 50's, basking in the sun like lizards--
July 28--Regular day at the point, cold, windy but do-able
July 29--the first "Snow Day" of the season, Wind at 30 MPH, temp at 34--looking out my window the snow is horizontal and the wind is picking up--snow and wind predicted for the rest of the week--We were in lab today, and for the first time, ran out of stuff to do and sent the kids home aqt 12:30. Ws are completely caught up with the backlog of artifacts from 2006, 2007, thoudands of pounds of peat and we were processing artifacts today we removed on Monday. There are whitecaps on our little lagoon. I'm anxious to see how much damage the driftwood feature has suffered. When we left on friday, there was a small 3' high beach ridge of sand and gravel between us and the surf line. and the beach line was 12-15 feet from the rear edge of the pit. On Monday the beach ridge was gone and the surf line was 4-5' from the back edge of the pit with some of the larger waves lapping at the edge right below us--the more startling thing was to see the permafrost jutting out from the bluff about 2' below us and the waves undercutting it by a good 3-5'. that section of bluff will just collapse and disappear. We had located and flagged the peat location with tundra and peat earlier in the season, it was startling to see a piece of the tundra come floating by with a pin flag stuck in it. I'm going to try to find a picture of the site earlier when we first opened it up and contast that with one taken Monday.
July 22--cold, windy with a few snow showers--no big deal--
July 25--wind so strong it picks up the gravel like shotgun pellets
July 27--Beautiful sunny day, temps in the 50's, basking in the sun like lizards--
July 28--Regular day at the point, cold, windy but do-able
July 29--the first "Snow Day" of the season, Wind at 30 MPH, temp at 34--looking out my window the snow is horizontal and the wind is picking up--snow and wind predicted for the rest of the week--We were in lab today, and for the first time, ran out of stuff to do and sent the kids home aqt 12:30. Ws are completely caught up with the backlog of artifacts from 2006, 2007, thoudands of pounds of peat and we were processing artifacts today we removed on Monday. There are whitecaps on our little lagoon. I'm anxious to see how much damage the driftwood feature has suffered. When we left on friday, there was a small 3' high beach ridge of sand and gravel between us and the surf line. and the beach line was 12-15 feet from the rear edge of the pit. On Monday the beach ridge was gone and the surf line was 4-5' from the back edge of the pit with some of the larger waves lapping at the edge right below us--the more startling thing was to see the permafrost jutting out from the bluff about 2' below us and the waves undercutting it by a good 3-5'. that section of bluff will just collapse and disappear. We had located and flagged the peat location with tundra and peat earlier in the season, it was startling to see a piece of the tundra come floating by with a pin flag stuck in it. I'm going to try to find a picture of the site earlier when we first opened it up and contast that with one taken Monday.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Day 60--The Mother of All Test Pits
We've spent most of the week digging the mother of all test pits, see the picture or pictures I've posted. this one is 15 meteres X 4 meteres X 1 1/2 meteres, even accounting for the slumps on the sides which are inevitable, we still figure we excavated 60 cubic meteres of gravel. This is no small feat. The idea was to see how far the driftwood feature extended back from the bluff, we dug it about 10 meters from the back edge of the driftwood feature, so there is a 6-7 meter berm between the two, which also may have to go or we can expand it to the sides going east and west--we'll see.
Mostly the weather has been, as they say, variable. For all the days except Wed, it was cold, cloudy or foggy, and windy. Wednesday was beautiful, 40-45 sunny, little or no wind, got a good shot of Adam napping on his Honda. We've been using the Honda's as loading platforms, to haul away buckets of gravel, 3 on the back, 3 on the front and one in each foot well, each bucket weights about 50+ pounds, maybe even 60-70 depending on how full they are so the Honda's are hauling 400+ pounds on each load.
Thursday was spent mostly excavating 2 faux burials, vegatative mounds, that usually indicate burials but in this case weren't--Friday, I spent in the lab with two folks from the dental clinic who brought over their portable X-Ray machine and we tried to take x-rays of the available excavated burials with dentition. Out of the potential 26 burials, we got 4 done, the learning curve got pretty steep for awhile, and we'll see if any useful information actually gets produced. Problems were, bringing the pediatric film instead of the adult film, having only one box of film, 75, which we used up on the four burials, aiming the x-ray gun at the mandible with the full box of x-ray film right behind it, possibly exposing the unexposed film, setting the angle of the gun so Vera was sitting in the direct line of fire, etc. The conditions at the point were(I was told) very cold, and they two PI's in charge were guageing the wind strength with a portable anamometer at 22MPH and decided if it picked up to 35 MPH, it was quitting time, as at 35 the gravel gets picked up by the wind and acts like shotgun pellets whipping across the landscape. Got a decent picture of Angelique who is one of the elders in residence here who makes masks out of caribou skin, wolf fur, seal fur etc, marvelous pieces of native art.
Mostly the weather has been, as they say, variable. For all the days except Wed, it was cold, cloudy or foggy, and windy. Wednesday was beautiful, 40-45 sunny, little or no wind, got a good shot of Adam napping on his Honda. We've been using the Honda's as loading platforms, to haul away buckets of gravel, 3 on the back, 3 on the front and one in each foot well, each bucket weights about 50+ pounds, maybe even 60-70 depending on how full they are so the Honda's are hauling 400+ pounds on each load.
Thursday was spent mostly excavating 2 faux burials, vegatative mounds, that usually indicate burials but in this case weren't--Friday, I spent in the lab with two folks from the dental clinic who brought over their portable X-Ray machine and we tried to take x-rays of the available excavated burials with dentition. Out of the potential 26 burials, we got 4 done, the learning curve got pretty steep for awhile, and we'll see if any useful information actually gets produced. Problems were, bringing the pediatric film instead of the adult film, having only one box of film, 75, which we used up on the four burials, aiming the x-ray gun at the mandible with the full box of x-ray film right behind it, possibly exposing the unexposed film, setting the angle of the gun so Vera was sitting in the direct line of fire, etc. The conditions at the point were(I was told) very cold, and they two PI's in charge were guageing the wind strength with a portable anamometer at 22MPH and decided if it picked up to 35 MPH, it was quitting time, as at 35 the gravel gets picked up by the wind and acts like shotgun pellets whipping across the landscape. Got a decent picture of Angelique who is one of the elders in residence here who makes masks out of caribou skin, wolf fur, seal fur etc, marvelous pieces of native art.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Day 53--3 days at the point
We spent the last three days at the point doing the usual archaeological stuff. I've been working in the area we have labled the fox den since that is what once lived there. the area is 7 metres X 6 meters and were working an alternate checkerboard pattern with the intent of removing it all eventually. the top 3-6" is covered with thick turf that is a mother to cut through. The trowels up here are honed to a razors edge, so that helps and then we cut through the last 1 or 2 inches with a shovel. If you are careful you can peel back the turf, saving it to replace later and most of the artifacts, faunal bones, bone chips and whalebone + human bones are either on the surface or imbredded in the last inch or so of roots. Thrus at lunch we were sitting on the leeward side of the tent to get out of the wind when the kids strolled around the side and plunked down a 60 pound seal that had gotten caught in a fishing net and drowned. Protocal says it has to be offered to the owner of the net and he decides disposition.
Friday was different story altogether. We left for the point at 9AM on friday and got back at 2:40 AM on saturday, your basic 17 hour workday. There was a significant non-burial find made at 3PM which dictated that we stay until it was removed.Due to its composition and fragility it simply could not remain exposed to weather and potential destruction over the weekend. We've all been sworn to secrecy so I can't say more than that until later.
Saturday we were all pretty useless due to the previous workday(s)and today, sunday , not a lot better but better than saturday. Tomorrow we are back out at the point for the week, weather for those who follow that stuff, is 35-40 degrees, with a 15-20MPH wind and rain/snow predicted for the entire week. snow is not a problem, rain is.
Pictures this time are me and Denver banding snowy owl chicks (eat your heart out Sarah!) the seal mentioned above, Kyle with the seal strapped to the honda and someones idea of a joke, a fox trap baited with a peppermint, HA!! it would take at least a bottle of beer to be effective!
Friday was different story altogether. We left for the point at 9AM on friday and got back at 2:40 AM on saturday, your basic 17 hour workday. There was a significant non-burial find made at 3PM which dictated that we stay until it was removed.Due to its composition and fragility it simply could not remain exposed to weather and potential destruction over the weekend. We've all been sworn to secrecy so I can't say more than that until later.
Saturday we were all pretty useless due to the previous workday(s)and today, sunday , not a lot better but better than saturday. Tomorrow we are back out at the point for the week, weather for those who follow that stuff, is 35-40 degrees, with a 15-20MPH wind and rain/snow predicted for the entire week. snow is not a problem, rain is.
Pictures this time are me and Denver banding snowy owl chicks (eat your heart out Sarah!) the seal mentioned above, Kyle with the seal strapped to the honda and someones idea of a joke, a fox trap baited with a peppermint, HA!! it would take at least a bottle of beer to be effective!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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